PLAINFIELD — Ralph Bowie influenced the lives of hundreds of students during his career as a musician, teacher and band director.
Whether it was an introduction to instruments as elementary school children, marching with the Lebanon High School band or taking lessons as an adult, a musical journey with Bowie became a cherished memory for many.
“He had a gift for making you feel like music wasn’t something to study — it was an adventure, a game, something to enjoy and to share,” Sarah Chamberlain said before this year’s Upper Valley Community Band spring concert, which was dedicated to Bowie.
Chamberlain first came to know Bowie by playing the clarinet under Bowie’s direction at Lebanon High School in the early 1990s. He was Lebanon High School’s music and band director from 1966 to 1996.
She then reconnected with him when she joined the UVCB, a volunteer band comprised of about 70 musicians, in her 30s. Bowie played the French horn and trumpet in the UVCB, and also played in other area bands including the Lyme Town Band and South Royalton Town Band.
“I got the impression he honestly thought everybody could play something,” Chamberlain said in a phone interview. “You didn’t have to be technically skilled. He was patient with you and he was hands on. If you messed up, he did not call you out on it but helped you correct it.”
After Bowie’s death on May 5 from complications following an embolism, his wife, Donna, said letters and online comments from many former students expressed heartfelt sentiments about the impact he had on them.
“You hear it from all these kids, that same story. We love him, We love him, We love him,” said Donna, who became Bowie’s second wife in 1979. “Ralph always had this gift for music and he always loved teaching. He wanted to raise everybody up to do the best they could do.”
Bowie was born in Keene, N.H., into a musically gifted family. His parents both played instruments and by the time Bowie was 6, he was learning the clarinet and trumpet. When they were not quite teenagers, Bowie and his brother would travel by train to the Boston Conservatory of Music for lessons. Bowie later studied there for two years before being drafted into the Army where he played in the 83rd Army Band in Germany.
After receiving his undergraduate and graduate degrees, Bowie taught in the New Hampshire communities of Salem, Raymond, Candia and also at Northwood Academy and Portsmouth High School before arriving in Lebanon.
Bowie was firm and demanding but also supportive and encouraging to all his students and part of his teaching equation included humor and laughter, Donna Bowie said in an interview at the Bowies’ home in Plainfield.
“He had that smile and kids would say, ‘He saw in me what I didn’t see in myself’,” she said.
One former student, Tina Gove Kelbaka, called Bowie the original Mr. Holland from the 1995 film “Mr. Holland’s Opus,” about a frustrated composer who reluctantly takes a high school job teaching music, eventually realizes the profound impact he has on his students and stays for 30 years.
Bowie’s marching bands always had more than 100 students and included everyone from athletes, artists, scholars and shop students. The marching band was so well regarded that people would come to football games to see the halftime show, said Kelbaka, a 1987 Lebanon graduate.
“Even if the team was not that good, the stands were full for the halftime show,” she said.
In addition to local parades, football games, festivals and competitions, Bowie organized and did fundraising for annual trips to the Eastern States Exhibition in Massachusetts to play on New Hampshire Day, Kelbaka said.
The band played in a D.C. parade honoring the military after Desert Storm in the early 1990s, at Fanueil Hall in Boston and the Cherry Blossom Festival Parade in Washington D.C. Nationwide close to 130 bands apply to march in the festival parade with just 25 being accepted, the Valley News reported. Lebanon was the only band from New Hampshire chosen in 1983, which was the third time it was picked in 15 years. It also marched in 1972 and won third place for its performance at the parade in 1969.
“The band gets a lot of exposure since usually about a half million people watch the parade,” Bowie told the Valley News in 1983.
Bowie could get “wound up and excited” at times during rehearsals but for the right reasons, Kelbaka said. She remembered one August parking lot practice when Bowie was so frustrated that he told the students to go home. But they refused, Kelbaka said.
“Nobody moved. We were going to fix this,” she said, and practice resumed.
“We understood he cared,” Kelbaka said. “He cared so much that sometimes caring sounded overwhelming, but we know how hard he worked and what he did for us. We all wanted to do our best for him.”
When it came to the band’s look and performance, Bowie had demanding standards that were never compromised.
“If your uniform was not as it should be, you weren’t marching that day,” Donna Bowie said. “You learned to be on time, and you better be in step and you better know your music. He taught ideals you could carry through life. He was firm, but the kids loved it. They didn’t want somebody out of step if they were in step.”
Kelbaka said Bowie never belittled students who failed to measure up on a particular day and was almost apologetic when telling someone they would not be marching.
“We were so proud to be in the band,” Kelbaka said. “It would kill us if we didn’t march.”
Bowie’s son, Ed, who played in high school band and today lives in California, said his father was great at “selling” brass instruments to both boys and girls so he would have a brass section in the marching band. He always came to the elementary school with a beautiful, shiny trumpet and trombone that would get the kids excited.
Ed Bowie remembered the trombone section was led by four girls one year in the 1970s
“He told them they would be in the front row marching,” Ed said. “He was so proud of that.”
Bowie sold Kelbaka on the trumpet when she was thinking of the flute or clarinet as a fourth grader at the then-Seminary Hill school.
“I vividly remember meeting him that day and putting a trumpet in my hand,” Kelbaka said
Bowie’s love for his students went beyond their time playing music for him.
When Kelbaka’s cousin, Sherry Royce, was diagnosed with cancer at age 14, she was playing the baritone horn and wanted Kelbaka to learn the instrument so they could march together in high school. Royce was always part of the band in Bowie’s eyes, even when she was too ill to play at times in high school.
He had her come to the annual Cavalcade of Bands at Dartmouth, which brought Vermont and New Hampshire high school bands together in the fall to showcase their talents and called upon the band to play for Royce in the parking lot of the then-Mary Hitchcock Hospital. When Royce died at age 16, Bowie had the band play on the steps of Sacred Heart Church when her casket was carried in.
“Ralph was so supportive of her through her cancer journey,” said Kelbaka, adding that Bowie made sure she played her cousin’s baritone horn, something Royce wanted.
Music was not Bowie’s only passion. He loved the outdoors, whether sailing off the Maine coast with Donna, hiking the 48, 4,000-foot peaks in the White Mountains with his children or out west, camping and bicycling. In addition to Ed, Bowie had a daughter, Laura. He also had two stepchildren.
After the Lebanon Opera House closed as a movie theater in the 1960s, Bowie became a driving force, along with Jack O’Connell, to transform the Lebanon Opera House into a performance venue.
Ed Bowie remembers seeing the movie 2001 Space Odyssey with his dad, who said the acoustics were outstanding in the theater. “He said, ‘This place is perfect. I would love to do something here,’ ” Ed recalled.
In his written retelling of the transformation of the building from 1969 to 1994, Bowie said as soon as he heard the movie house was closing, he knew right away it could be a place for the school band to play — instead of the gym — as well as a great place for musical theater.
Bowie convinced the city manager to let the music department manage it and with some band members helping out, the place was cleaned and the screen removed in time for the 1969 Christmas concert. “It worked and we loved it. So did the audience,” Bowie wrote.
A year later, the musical “Oklahoma” was staged. Money was raised, others offered their expertise and improvements were completed. Ed Bowie said one of his jobs, as a seventh grader, was to help apply two coats of fresh paint to the interior.
After retiring from teaching, Bowie, who began experiencing heart problems in the late 1990s when he had his first stroke, remained active in the local music scene as an instructor and musician.
Bette Roberto, now a Lebanon resident in her 70s, played music in high school in Massachusetts. About 20 years ago, her husband and some friends urged her to join the UVCB, but Roberto was reluctant and lacked confidence. Then, in 2006, her husband gave her a gift: three trumpet lessons with Bowie.
“He was just wonderful,” Roberto said. “When I joined the band, he was sitting there waiting for me.”
And — like he was with the hundreds of students before her — Roberto said, Bowie “was so supportive.”
Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.
